understood the situation now, and asked no questions. When it
arrived, we and our charming hosts, whose society we were to enjoy for a
few days longer, embarked for Samara, to visit the famous kumys
establishments on the steppes.

Russian harvest-tide was over for us, leaving behind a store of memories
as golden as the grain, fitly framed on either hand by Mother Volga.

XI.

THE RUSSIAN KUMYS CURE.

It is not many years since every pound of freight, every human being,
bound to Astrakhan from the interior of Russia simply floated down the
river Volga with the current. The return journey was made slowly and
painfully, in tow of those human beasts of burden, the _burlaki_. The
traces of their towpath along the shores may still be seen, and the
system itself may even be observed at times, when light barks have to be
forced upstream for short distances.

Then some enterprising individual set up a line of steamers, in the face
of the usual predictions from the wiseacres that he would ruin himself
and all his kin. The undertaking proved so fabulously successful and
profitable that a wild rush of competition ensued. But the competition
seems to have consisted chiefly in the establishment of rival lines of
steamers, and there are some peculiarities of river travel which still
exist in consequence. One of these curious features is that each
navigation company appears to have adopted a certain type of steamer at
the outset, and not to have improved on that original idea to any marked
degree. There are some honorable exceptions, it is true, and I certainly
have a very definite opinion concerning the line which I would patronize
on a second trip. Another idea, to which they have clung with equal
obstinacy, though it is far from making amends for the other, is that a
journey is worth a certain fixed sum per verst, utterly regardless of
the vast difference in the accommodations offered.

Possibly it is a natural consequence of having been born in America, and
of having heard the American boast of independence and progress and the
foreign boast of conservatism contrasted ever since I learned my
alphabet, not to exaggerate unduly, that I should take particular notice
of all illustrations of these conflicting systems. Generally speaking, I
advocate a judicious mixture of the two, in varying proportions to suit
my taste on each special occasion. But there are times when I distinctly
favor the broadest independence and prog